The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

as well as to things, and a just
distribution, as I have already said in the Ethics, implies the
same ratio between the persons and between the things, they agree
about the equality of the things, but dispute about the equality of
the persons, chiefly for the reason which I have just given—because
they are bad judges in their own affairs; and secondly, because
both the parties to the argument are speaking of a limited and
partial justice, but imagine themselves to be speaking of absolute
justice. For the one party, if they are unequal in one respect, for
example wealth, consider themselves to be unequal in all; and the
other party, if they are equal in one respect, for example free
birth, consider themselves to be equal in all. But they leave out
the capital point. For if men met and associated out of regard to
wealth only, their share in the state would be proportioned to
their property, and the oligarchical doctrine would then seem to
carry the day. It would not be just that he who paid one mina
should have the same share of a hundred minae, whether of the
principal or of the profits, as he who paid the remaining
ninety-nine. But a state exists for the sake of a good life, and
not for the sake of life only: if life only were the object, slaves
and brute animals might form a state, but they cannot, for they
have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice. Nor does a
state exist for the sake of alliance and security from injustice,
nor yet for the sake of exchange and mutual intercourse; for then
the Tyrrhenians and the Carthaginians, and all who have commercial
treaties with one another, would be the citizens of one state.
True, they have agreements about imports, and engagements that they
will do no wrong to one another, and written articles of alliance.
But there are no magistrates common to the contracting parties who
will enforce their engagements; different states have each their
own magistracies. Nor does one state take care that the citizens of
the other are such as they ought to be, nor see that those who come
under the terms of the treaty do no wrong or wickedness at an, but
only that they do no injustice to one another. Whereas, those who
care for good government take into consideration virtue and vice in
states. Whence it may be further inferred that virtue must be the
care of a state which is truly so called, and not merely enjoys the
name: for without this end the community becomes a mere alliance
which differs only in place from alliances of which the members
live apart; and law is only a convention, ‘a surety to one another
of justice,’ as the sophist Lycophron says, and has no real power
to make the citizens
    This is obvious; for suppose distinct places, such as Corinth
and Megara, to be brought together so that their walls touched,
still they would not be one city, not even if the citizens had the
right to intermarry, which is one of the rights peculiarly
characteristic of states. Again, if men dwelt at a distance from
one another, but not so far off as to have no intercourse, and
there were laws among them that they should not wrong each other in
their exchanges, neither would this be a state. Let us suppose that
one man is a carpenter, another a husbandman, another a shoemaker,
and so on, and that their number is ten thousand: nevertheless, if
they have nothing in common but exchange, alliance, and the like,
that would not constitute a state. Why is this? Surely not because
they are at a distance from one another: for even supposing that
such a community were to meet in one place, but that each man had a
house of his own, which was in a manner his state, and that they
made alliance with one another, but only against evil-doers; still
an accurate thinker would not deem this to be a state, if their
intercourse with one another was of the same character after as
before their union. It is clear then that a state is not a mere
society, having a common place, established for the prevention of
mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are conditions
without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not
constitute a state, which is a community of families and
aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect
and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established
among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise
in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices,
amusements which draw men together. But these are